Weird Prayers, Friends, Growth, Ego and John Ralston Saul.

As my friends know, and readers of this blog,…. I have been writing my fingers off….but also preparing for the ‘birth’ of “A Seasoning of Lust”, my first published book. It’s a slight volume of poetry and short stories (not so slight, my editor has divided it into two volumes)…one for before Xmas publication and one for (hopefully) publication on Valentine’s Day. Seems appropriate for issues of ‘lust’.

I didn’t realize that when you start a blog, and IF you get some regular readers, you have a responsibility to keep writing your thoughts and experiences and what you think are some answers. Or people write private emails with these issues attached, their opinions and either you spend a LOT of time writing back (and I try to) or you present things here on the blog face. My friends, Mary, Rose, Phil, Malkinius, Pat, John, Carol, and others have made this really easy for me lately because they have taken up much of the work. Their writings have allowed me to noodle around with unrelated tasks and my own writing, and I thank them for it.

I make no bones about my own private journey lately. I am seeking answers to some issues. One of these issues is the inner spirit, the search for the Light inside.

People who know me know I was a Quaker for 12 years. I put that aside around 2001, and tried to become more ‘outward’…more worldly. Becoming a belly dancer five years ago was part of this…and I can now say that this activity is more of me than I would have ever believed in the beginning. It forms much of my outward behavior, and it’s not been without struggle to see the changes it has made in me mentally.

But there are other issues that have become just as important as being a dancer. This issue of my submission, something I thought lost or obscured in the past few months, has come roaring back, but with new concepts and a different understanding.

Perhaps the questions have become clearer, or I am more open and less resistant to what it means, but there is something different now in its issue.

The best way to describe is this: it is what exists inside me…and it IS what I AM…a deeply submissive woman that only responds to a powerfully dominant man. It’s this dynamic. I fought it before for lots of reasons, but now I understand more of what I am…and I am a mixture of dominance and submissive tendencies, but they all settle into this person that is ‘ok’. I am not challenged by what others think of me, and I am not challenged by my own doubts that I am a ‘proper’ submissive woman.

I respond to power because I am…fundamentally, a powerful woman. That is very much part of my submissive nature. I need a power equally or more opposite me to respond in the deepest submissive response. I make no apologies for this, thinking that I am not docile enough, or meek enough. I am when I need to be, and that needing to be becomes part of the response. It is rather a startling thing when it happens, but it has happened rarely as of yet. I await with great pleasure knowing that I am accepting of my nature now and aware of its potential.

What I am is the sum total of my deepest and truest nature. I am, simply, a woman who is finding herself and that nature, and I am inspecting that nature like a jewel in my hand: it reflects the beauty of diversity and talents and uniqueness and I am pleased to meet myself finally.

I am ok. And the belly dancing helps me get in touch with that sexual side of my deep femininity, which is a good thing! I am finally able to understand the integration of the parts of me. All these things have a purpose, they weren’t things to dismiss. They might make others uncomfortable, but they don’t make me so anymore. I won’t fit into most boxes of others making.

This morning, I got a phone call from a friend in India….Aman. He is one of the most gentle and generous men I have met. He is a fantastic poet, though too modest by far, but he’s like a Sufi dancer/poet…always full of such spiritual thoughts he leaks prayer and giggles like a boy. Perhaps in India you learn to be so and in doing so you divest yourself of all pompous and self-serving ego that we in the West seem to need to plumb up our images.

Ego. I have been through the ringer with my own and with that of others lately. It has left some wounds.

Aman knows my struggles and has been sending, unbeknownst to me, Prayers of Healing. LOL! They must be working because my mentality has improved and I laugh a lot more.

And damn if I don’t DANCE better, too. I find that I am lifted up on my feet in ways that I didn’t know before. All this inward and outward stuff going on without my conscious knowledge!

I am healing, and the damn ego is not so fiercely defensive. Believe me or not, it’s not so much in charge. I was so defensive, and another man whose ego was even stronger than mine, brought out a lot of my own issues…
Ego against Ego…and there seemed to be little growth in me at that time. There was growth, I just didn’t see it’s projection.

It’s all in how you perceive and how you sum up your experiences.

I have figured when I fight myself and others instead of allowing them to float over me like water, that my ego is trying to make sure IT stays in charge.

Ego tries to make us feel separate from the rest of humanity. Ego tries to make us feel flawed, broken and alone instead of part of humanity.

This is where John Ralston Saul comes in for me because he somehow makes me feel in a philosophical sense, connected with the rest of humanity.

I started out reading Saul for answers to the world’s issues..like globalism, etc. But something along the way happened with Saul. The outward answers I was seeking started to turn inward. Our qualities of being human can not exist in isolation. We become unbalanced when we do, or try to do so.

What started out as an exploration into the world’s issues and answers to world crisis became part, a very fundamental part….of an exploration into my own participation in that world. But moreso, not just my ‘self’ vis a vis that world, but a struggle for personal balance.

So…there is growth and change here and I am full of energy again.

And am very grateful for any prayers, weird or healing that Aman and others are throwing my way. I will throw them around too, because I am stronger now and I can share.

Lady Nyo -teela -Jane…all three with a similar purpose in life.

Tags: bellydancing, D/s, ego and John Ralston Saul, friends, Hindu prayers of healing, submission